


In Patient

by sayumi_konoto



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Anger, Dissociation, Distrust, Gen, Inaccurate police business, Kamoshida mentioned, Mental Health Issues, Mostly realistic psychiatric hospital AU, Much More - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, content warning, i advise you not to read if any of these will make you unhappy in any way, internalized ableism, police brutality mentioned, there are more but i already flooded the tags srry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayumi_konoto/pseuds/sayumi_konoto
Summary: Amamiya Ren is put on house arrest after being charged for assaulting an innocent man. After a little over a month wallowing under his arrest, he wakes up in a cot at the unfortunately named The Velvet Room Long-Term Children's Psychiatric Hospital in Tokyo, far away from his hometown in Gifu Prefecture, waiting to be admitted.He doubts anybody will believe anything he says, especially now that he's here, but the other patients--and eventually the staff--prove to him that there are some people worth confiding in.And that things will get better, even just the tiniest bit.(They also prove that dating while inpatient is not cute, drawing with non-toxic markers get real boring after a week but playing Tycoon never does, and that therapy animals are the superior species.)
Relationships: The Phantom Thieves + Intensive Therapy!!
Kudos: 36





	1. Amamiya-kun

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! please heed the warning if this kinda of stuff will drudge up some shit! its been a year since i went to inpatient (short-term) and its only now that i can really bring my thoughts to paper with others. this is based on my own experiences as an undiagnosed autistic teenager in an american hospital. ive been having a bad time recently so im trying to do something that will show me hope again. i hope any readers get a little educated, get a little hope, or just enjoy en general <3 muah  
> headcanon references from my blog: (https://iconsumeheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/621497154218934272/persona-characters-autism-headcanons) & (https://iconsumeheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/620012693635678208/okay-new-p5-au-idea-thats-may-be-triggering-4)

Ren feels like he just woke up from a long nap, or maybe a coma. His limbs are sore, his head aches like he clenched his teeth overnight, and everything feels numb and cold. He cracks open his eyes to muted green walls and beige furnishings. When he moves his arms in an attempt to return feeling to his fingers, he finds a thin scratchy blanket draped over his torso. He only doesn’t brush it off because the room is so fucking freezing.

As he starts the long shaky process of sitting up from his prone position, he hears the squeak of a heavy door and the presence of another human being fills the silent room. This place seems different than the small town clinic he’s gone to for years. At least he’s not attached to any machines.

“Oh! Hello there,” says the woman who entered. She fills Ren’s blotchy vision and guides him to lean against the wall adjacent to his cot with her hands. Ren shudders from both the contact and the reverb of her voice in the tiny room.

“Hi,” Ren says inexplicably. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. He tries to recall if he fell out of a tree (again) and if he might have been put on anesthesia or something or the other.

The nurse giggles, “Yes, hi,” When she’s satisfied he won’t go anywhere, she steps back to pull over her chair. She’s not as close as before, but her assessing eyes and pleasant air swamps Ren’s vision.

“How are you feeling, Amamiya-kun?” She asks slowly and carefully. She enunciates every syllable like she’s speaking to a child or a foreigner. At least she avoids using a falsetto.

“Like I’m drugged. Am I drugged?” He mumbles back, looking everywhere but her eyes. She’s wearing magenta scrubs with various blue butterflies scattered all over them. How charming. His mom never wore scrubs as colorful as these.

She frowns. “Not that anyone here is aware of. Why do you think you’re drugged, Amamiya-kun?” She bends her torso a bit to find his eyes through his messy bangs. Ren turns away to look at the industrial sink in the corner.

“Are we in Nagatsuka--uh--Nagatsugawa?” He asks instead. The fog over his head is lifting a bit and he takes advantage of that to roam his eyes over the small clinic room. There’s nothing much in it of course. Definitely nothing small enough to throw.

He tenses when the nurse sighs and shifts away from him. He flitts his gaze back to her, examming her demeanor, but she doesn’t seem annoyed or angry like he feared. At least not at him. Ren does not miss the flat look she sends to the door, though he’s not sure what that look implies.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where that is,” She admits kindly. When she looks back at him, they make eye contact and she smiles softly. Ren jumps his gaze to his shaking hands.

“Amamiya-kun, do you know where you are?” She asks, a little louder and with the clear tone from before.

Ren scoffs, “Well, not anymore.” That was kinda dumb of her to ask.

“Of course. Right now you are in a hospital in Tokyo. Do you know how you got here?”

What? Tokyo?

“Why am I in Tokyo?” He asks, sitting up ramrod straight. It makes no sense to put him in a hospital hours away when his mom works at the one in town.

“Amamiya-kun, do you know why you’re here? At this hospital?” She reiterates. 

“No, I don’t,” Ren laughs unbiddenly, “What, do I need a special transplant or something?” He tries to stuff his dry hands into his pants pockets, but finds none in whatever he has on. Where the hell did his actual clothes go?

The nurse is writing something down, he realizes suddenly. Her pen quietly scratches on the clipboard. The sound of it makes Ren sick.

“Amamiya-kun,” she starts again. Why does she keep saying his name like that? “What’s the last thing you remember?”

What does she…?

He doesn’t know how long he’s quiet--What does she mean ‘he can’t remember’? _What_ doesn’t he remember? How did he get to a _hospital_ in _Tokyo_?--but the nurse breaks the silence with more pencil scrapes. There’s also a light tapping sound filling the air. He can feel his right leg hopping off the little stool by the cot, but his brain can’t seem to connect the sound and the movement.

“Amamiya-kun,” She says. _Again_. “You were brought here because you were going to hurt yourself and others. The doctor from the police station in--”she checks her clipboard--”Sakashita said you would be safer here. Do you remember that?”

_No._ No, what the hell? What did she mean, like when he was arrested? He wasn’t going to hurt anyone! He didn’t hurt anyone! That asshole deserved to get hit by someone, but Ren was _not_ going to hurt that piss bucket or himself! First he gets arrested for something he didn’t actually do, and then what? He gets sent to the fucking capital because--what--were they worried he was gonna push someone? Maybe they actually sedated him before he got here. Or maybe they’re lying to him. 

What the hell. What the hell.

His wrists itch. He doesn’t act on the sudden strong desire to tear his nails down his arm because he’s sure this lady will write that down and he’ll definitely get admitted, but when she opens her mouth again, he understands at the back of his mind why they think he’s going to hurt someone.

“Amamiya-kun, are you--”

“--Stop. Stop saying my name like that,” He interrupts. Because he can’t put his hands in his pockets or on his wrists, he uses his hands to shield his face instead. “Don’t look at me like that.”

More pen scratching. Ren wants to throw it across the room.

“How do you think I’m looking at you?” she asks evenly while she writes.

“Like I’m crazy,” he snaps back, “Like you don’t believe anything I say.”

“Hmm...You haven’t said anything that I could make a judgement of like that. I’m sorry if I caused you to feel that way. I don’t think you’re crazy.”

He wants to believe her, but the last ‘witness to his true intentions’ he remembers clearly is that woman who screamed for his help and then told the cops that he had attacked her own assaulter while her assaulter got off scot free. His own parents hadn’t believed him when he told them the truth either. 

...Had his parents been there at the station when the doctor decided to send him here, to this...mental hospital? Did they agree? When he tries to look back on it, however he got here, all that comes up is brain fog.

Perhaps sensing his rising panic, the nurse taps his knee with her pen. “Do you have any questions for me? I don’t know everything, but I can explain as much as you need.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt anybody. Why am I here?”

“Were you going to hurt yourself?”

Ren growled. Maybe this woman was just like his mother, nitpicking at the tiniest things and assuming that he was starting trouble on purpose. He hated when the nurse was staring at him before, but now he wishes she would actually fucking look at him instead of writing down everything he was doing wrong. The linen blanket beneath his clenched fingers felt rough, like bark on a tree.

This was nothing like that particular time he fell off a tree. At least then he knew why he was in the hospital.

“Do you remember going to the police station?” the nurse asks slowly. Ren can barely hear her. The sheer silence in the room is maddening.

“I was arrested,” he says deadpan. This is dumb. His right leg bounces and he can feel his bitten nails reach his palms through the blanket.

“What about after you were arrested?”

After? Didn’t they send him straight here?

“You were brought back to the station after you threatened your parents. Do you remember that?”

...Ren can’t help himself then. The blanket scrunches into spirals of cloth under his hands, and his right foot slams into the bottom of the cot.

“No, no, I don’t! Did they send me here because--because--what? What did they think I did?! I didn’t attack that man, I didn’t attack my parents, and I wasn’t going to fuckin’ hurt myself!”

His chest heaves when he’s done. He’s not used to ranting. His nose burns from the cold, dry air and his ears ring from the echo of his own voice. He didn’t even shout, but the fluorescent light glaring over him and the pure emotion he feels coursing through his body makes him feel like he was the one getting yelled at. He suddenly feels dizzy, his mind crawling its way through this whole mess.

“...Ren-kun,” the nurse says. He somehow hates that even more. He doesn’t get a chance to tell her to drop it because she takes a deep breath like she’s about to deliver terrible news. “Your parents, the nice men working to protect your hometown, and myself are worried that you are a danger to yourself and others. Even if you don’t remember it happening that way, you hurt an innocent man, tried to hurt yourself during your house arrest, and then you threatened to hurt your parents when they tried to stop you. 

“You’re here so we can help you learn better coping skills to deal with your emotions, and you won’t have to worry about breaking probation or anything because we will be here to stop you from getting into trouble. You’re here to learn and to heal. Do you understand?”

He can’t even say anything. He knows he didn’t hurt anyone. He knows, thinks, hopes he wouldn’t hurt himself. But he doesn’t remember house arrest, or the doctor at the police station. He remembers being pulled into the car, handcuffs tight and lights blinding. He remembers when he was charged. He doesn’t remember much before, between, or after that. 

Maybe they did drug him. Maybe he was crazy. At this point it probably doesn’t matter what he says to anyone anymore. He might as well stop trying.

The nurse seems to take his silent defeat as an answer. She finally clicks that fucking pen into silence and stands. Her chair screeches when she rolls it back to its little corner, which is annoying and does little to break the oppressive air. At least she’s leaving. He doesn’t want to see her calm face or her pleasant smile. He hopes when she said that ‘they’ll’ help him that she wasn’t part of that group.

“Don’t worry too much, okay? Once your mind settles, you’ll be able to remember. Things will get harder before they get easier, but that’s why we’re here to take care of you,” she pauses at the door like she’s waiting for him to wave at her, “Please let us help you get to a better place.”

Like he’ll ever be able to recover from _this_.

He doesn’t do anything when she opens the door and leaves. He doesn’t reach over to turn the damn light switch, he doesn’t rub the bruises at his wrists, and he doesn’t use his foot to fiddle with the monitor anklet on his right leg. He doesn’t do anything because his whole life is just a shitty, shitty dream, and he’ll wake up to his dumb alarm clock and the sounds of his parents leaving for work in the morning.

He’s just a normal, sane teenager bored out of his mind in his stupid hometown, imagining terrific adventures in his sleep to break up his monotonous, ununique lifestyle.

Eventually, the door opens again. He has his hands and elbows propping up his head so he doesn’t look up right away. He assumes it’s the nurse back for round two, but when two blue uniforms and shiny black shoes reach his vision, his breath freezes in his throat like a block of ice.

No way. No way in hell. Not here too.

“Amamiya Ren, yeah? Come on now, get up.”

Fuck this place. Fuck. This. Place.


	2. Unit 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ohya hums, shifting in her chair. If she passes the tissue box to Ren, he’s going to throw it at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo! i wrote most of this months ago my b :(

For some god awful reason there are two cops--full uniform, strong grip, and smarmy attitude included--and Ren really doesn’t know what else he should suspect. Maybe he’ll get carried into a lab where the Prime Minister watches from a one-way glass while he gets filled with holes.

That scenario isn’t likely (as far as he knows), but he does know that the policemen pulling him through the white bright hallways do not have any plans to take him to ‘safety’ or ‘improvement’.

As soon as the cops had told him to get off the cot, Ren refused vehemently. He wasn’t going anywhere they were taking him. Of course his refusal meant they had permission to grab him, and now here he was, being manhandled through security and two sets of electronically locked doorways. Ren knows from experience that struggling against their hold would exacerbate the red lines they were digging on his arms.

The hallways were barely warmer than the intake room he had been in before, but he was too busy dragging his feet and swinging his shoulders to notice right away. They hadn’t cuffed him surprisingly, but might not have needed to. Ren still felt disoriented beyond memory, and his limbs still felt too weak to actually walk independently. 

They passed through the second set of doors and opened up into an open hallway and its diverging pathways with scattered staff members in scrubs fast-walking with purpose, one or two patients accompanied by another person in a lab coat, and the faint sound of radio calls and beeping keypads to doors. A few people turned to glance at Ren thrashing in the policemen’s arms, but none of the staff ran to help and the person in the lab coat quietly ordered her patients to look away.

To reiterate; Fuck this place.

“Let me go!” he manages to grit out. Asking for help clearly won’t do any good. He’s already inside the hospital-proper and it’s not like he has a clue on getting out. And it doesn’t necessarily look like a jail so that’s a plus. 

The blue bastards don’t show any sign of doing what he asks. While the guy on the left tries to say something about compliance or consequences, Ren swings his leg around, slamming the man right in the ankle.

The man doesn’t buckle, but he does loosen his grip on Ren’s arm enough that Ren can pull it free. The material of his shirt tears a bit, which he doesn’t get the pleasure of noticing until his own legs buckle and the cop on the right twists his other arm and pushes him down to the cold pristine floor.

Shoulder exposed and face pressed to the linoleum, Ren struggles again to do something with all his panicked energy. He doesn’t want to be here, but he’s not trying to leave. It should be easy to assume that most people don’t want to be forcibly dragged into a hospital, and that these people would come to expect his brand of fight-rather-than-flight response from patients, but really he should stop expecting cops to be decent human beings.

The cop holding him down is saying words to him. He doesn’t pay attention because he doesn’t care. He’s more worried about the other cop who sounds like he’s using his radio to call in reinforcements. Or maybe someone who will come and drug him while he’s down. He can’t understand a word anybody is saying.

A new voice rings out from somewhere on their left. Ren can see the person’s heels reflecting from the floor. Their voice is loud and the bite of their words pierce his ears more than the rough baritone of the policemen. This new person is angry, and he dearly hopes that anger isn’t pointed at him.

Seconds later, the pressure on his back vanishes and the shouting person bends down to join him on the floor.

“Can you walk?” she asks tiredly, words spinning in the fog in his head. Looking at her face, he can tell she isn’t angry at him at least.

He nods and attempts to get his sore arms to push him off the floor. The woman doesn’t even wait for his head to get off the floor before she looks up at the cops standing behind them.

“Get him a chair, will you. You should know that’s protocol,” she frowns and pushes some of her dark hair behind her ear. “Do you need help up?” she asks Ren.

“...No,” he says, rubbing his arms in an attempt to spread out the pain.

The woman watches him but she doesn’t fuss. She glances back at the doors Ren came through, then looks back at him with a small sigh.

“They’ll be a second. Are you alright? What’s your name?”

Processing her questions, Ren looks down the hall. It’s devoid of any patients or staff, and now he can see the framed paintings and drawings lining the halls. The building still feels too bare and white, but at least they have something other than the ‘motivational’ posters he remembered seeing at the police station.

“...Amamiya Ren. ’M fine.”

“Amamiya?” the woman parrots, “You’ll be joining my unit. Unit 5. Were you just admitted?”

Ren shrugs. Does that really matter? He’s here now isn’t he?

The woman seems unaffected by his non-response. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Kawakami Sadayo. You don’t have to call me sensei or anything, but I’ll be working with you whenever I have my shift.”

Sure. Cool. Whatever. As long the fucking cops aren’t running the place.

Kawakami heaves another little sigh, this one aimed at him. Oh well. It’s not like you can please everyone. They both continue to sit on the floor and watch as a door opens and closes down the hall. An intern with dyed auburn hair walks with a pass card held tightly in her hand. Before she turns to access a door to her left, she gives Kawakami a perky wave.

“I’m really sorry about the security’s behavior,” Kawakami says when the halls are empty again. “They’re just here to watch cameras and confiscate weapons, but sometimes we get short staffed up at the front.”

Oh, so _her_ apology excuses their behavior?

She must see the skepticism on his face because she lets out a low chuckle and says, “This isn’t how your admission is supposed to go, but I can guarantee that this will happen again if you make a habit of kicking people you don’t like. You’re here to learn solutions other than violence, okay?”

He doesn’t get a chance to regale her with a retort because the double doors open up behind them, and a haggard looking secretary rolls up a deep blue foldable wheelchair.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Kawakami stands and massages her knees. “Theodore, you’re a lifesaver.”

The secretary blinks and adjusts his blue bellboy cap. “Ah, my pleasure Kawakami-san, but I thought it was for the patient..?”

“It was a joke,” Kawakami says kindly, taking the handles of the chair. “Come on, Amamiya-kun, let’s go get you checked in.”

  
  


They go to an isolated toilet room when Ren has to take a drug test, measure his weight and height, and then take his clothes off for examination. Kawakami doesn’t bother checking his clothes for any loose strings or belts because he was already wearing scrubs meant for the patients who don’t bring clothes with them. She mumbles something about getting him a new shirt and socks while she checks for any bruises and scars along his skin. 

Ren can’t remember the last time he was unclothed around a stranger. Instead of listening to Kawakami mumbling to herself while she looks at his wrists, Ren thinks back to the onsen in Sakashita or the time his elementary class went on a trip to Kyoto and they got to spend the night and share rooms with their classmates. The first time he’s ever been to Tokyo and it’s like _this_. Figures.

When Kawakami is done, Ren gets redressed, and Kawakami rolls him back to the hallways. They pass through too many doors for Ren to make any sense of, and eventually they end up in some central area of the building. There are glass walls making up a large station where several nurses and other staff are flitting about, working on computers, messing with files, and talking to others. Through the glass walls, Ren can see what looks like different units of patients sitting in chairs or standing by telephones.

“That’s the nurses’ station,” Kawakami says, pointing at the glass room in the middle of the sectioned units. “If you ever need medication or if you’re feeling sick, you can go up to the window and ask for the nurse on duty.”

She takes him through another set of doors and suddenly they’re in an actual room. In the area to his right, he can see a few rows of plushy chairs arranged so that they all face the same direction, each with a desirable amount of personal space from each other. To his left he can see another hallway, though he can’t see where it leads. No one else seems to be here.

“Hmm...sit here for now,” Kawakami gestures at the lone chair between the hall and the chair room. “I’ll be right back.”

The chair Ren moves to sit in lines up perfectly with one of the glass walls of the nurses’ station. He remembers Kawakami saying something about security cameras. A nurse inside the station sees Ren looking at him and he gives a little wave. Ren shudders. His location is constantly monitored by the police and now he’s being watched 24/7 too?

He spends time looking around, finding glowing exit signs, more artwork, heavy wooden doors, and some weird...moving red lights on the walls. When he blinks, the red streaks vanish. The cold feeling he’s had since he first woke up here has not gone away. If anything he feels like the cold has intensified. The tear in his thin blue scrubs doesn’t help either.

Shivering from left over adrenaline and confusion, Ren hugs his arms and bends forward in the chair, vision spinning, silence ringing, and air stagnating. If sitting in the holding cell waiting for his parents to pick him up felt like dying, curling up in this empty room while medical professionals watched him go crazy felt like the whole world flipping itself inside-out and then stomping on him. Dying seems easier than this.

Somewhere to his right, a door opens up and Ren hears the click of heels echo and reverb until the sound ends in front of him. Distantly, he wonders if his entire stay at this place will be composed of encounters like this one. If so, it’s gonna get old real fast.

“Hey, kid, what’s your name?” a woman with a bored tone asks.

Ugh. Maybe patients should have name tags, hmm...Oh! How about the nice lovely band taped to arm with his full name printed on it in large, legible kanji?

He really wants to break something right now. Maybe he could request to be put in one of those padded rooms so he can ‘kick things he doesn’t like’ to his full desire.

“You listening to me? Just nod or do sign or something, alright? Answering questions will be easier in the long run, I promise.”

He shrugs. The woman sighs and taps the toe of one of her heels behind her other foot. He’s surprised heels that stiletto fit regulation. He’s certainly heard his mom throw a few fits heels and work.

“That’s fine, too, I guess…,” says Doctor Stiletto. She shuffles a bit and her lab coat swishes with her. “Are you feeling sick?”

She waits in an unimpressed silence for his response. He thinks then gives her a more positive shrug.

“...I’ll take that as a yes. Can you show me where, or should I just list body parts until you find the one you like the most?”

Shrug. General gesture at his whole body that he can’t tell if she can see. Everything feels bad and he wants to lie under a blanket and never come out. He doesn’t even care what time it is. He could sleep for the next week if possible. Maybe he’ll wake up in Hokkaido next. Or France. He always thought France was cool.

“Are you hungry? Dehydrated?”

No. Most likely.

The woman clicks away and returns shortly with a little paper cup of water. Ren’s hands shake when he takes it and the water tastes like rocks. _Ugh_ , just let him go to sleep.

“I’ll tell Sadayo to bring you plain rice. When I come back tomorrow for your check up, I expect you to eat something with a little more substance. It looks like you could break your arm if you tripped. Good night.”

Wow, okay. Thanks.

The doctor doesn’t leave even after saying good night. She does give him more space and waits at the double doors that lead out of the unit, seemingly texting somebody. Do the staff still have cell phones? Maybe rules at this hospital are different from the norm. What does he know? He’s in fucking _Tokyo_. Now that she seems to have talked him out of whatever panic he had been in, he takes the time to observe her work clothes. White lab coat, blue dress, red belt, and her sharp stilettos. Whatever rules there are about dress code, she’s probably breaking them, especially with the spiked collar, but it’s clear she doesn’t care. Even though it doesn’t necessarily look warmer than his scrubs, Ren would kill to wear something as punk as that.

(He probably shouldn’t say that.)

Eventually the doors open up again and Kawakami is followed by a line of patients and another adult in a lab coat. The patients stare at him as they pass by. Ren glares back out of reflex, gripping his biceps where the police hand grabbed him earlier. He can see someone flinch out of the corner of his eye and instantly feels a wave of shame.

One of the patients shouts, “Yooooo, we got a new guy!” and is instantly hushed by Kawakami, Messy Lab Coat Man, and several patients as they make their way to some arbitrary seating order in the large room to the side.

Kawakami serves him a plastic bowl with a serving of plain rice, asking him if he wants to eat where he is or sit with the group. Unprepared to brave that mess in that room, he accepts his utensil (a weak plastic spork, something he genuinely never seen before) and tucks his feet under his thighs so he is firmly positioned in the chair.

“Let me know when you’re done,” she says, leaving him be.

He doesn’t get too far, honestly too sick to swallow what he chews. It takes him about 12 minutes to eat a quarter of the rice and then he spends the next three minutes marvelling over the spork until Kawakami comes back and confiscates his meal, with a promise that he'll get a chance to come back to it before bedtime.

She guides him to the main room where a few of the kids glance at him while others keep their focus on the TV up on the wall. The man in the lab coat is fiddling with what looks like a mobile vital signs monitor. He shoots a hurried smile at Ren when he and Kawakami approach.

“Hey, there! Welcome to Unit 5! I’m Maruki Takuto!” the man says, stuffing his tie back in his shirt pocket when it falls out. “I’m a tech here most days during the first shift, so we’ll get used to seeing each other around. Uh, I’ll need to take your vitals since you just got here, but uh--don’t worry!--It doesn’t hurt or anything! It’s just blood pressure.”

“Liar, that shit is annoying as hell!” whispers one of the patients, likely unaware that his whispering was not very quiet.

“ _Sakamoto!_ ” Kawakami hisses. While she stalks away to chew out the kid with the fading bleached hair, Maruki adjusts the cuff around the only space on Ren’s upper arm that doesn’t look red, and cleans the thermometer while the machine calculates.

The pressure is tight, of course, and he’s still kind of dizzy so Ren doesn’t really have a fun time. Maruki reads his results out loud before writing them down and informs him that they’ll wake him up around four in the morning to do it again. He’s pointed to a seat in the middle of the room, third row back, between the rowdy guy with bleached hair and a tall boy with dark hair.

“‘Sup, man! Welcome aboard!” says the loud guy as Ren takes a seat. Sakamoto, maybe. He’s wearing an electric yellow t-shirt with his scrub pants rolled up to his knees. The only sign he might be feeling the chill in the room is the unbuttoned gown he draped around his shoulders. He seems excited, though Ren wouldn’t have a clue why anyone would be happy in a hospital.

The dark haired boy on his other side gives a little nod in greeting, but does not tear his intense gaze from the childrens’ show playing on the TV at the front of the room. The boy is tense in his seat, and despite his significant height, seems overly small in his large scrubs. Ren can see what are likely stray markings from markers all over the boy’s knees and hands. He rests his chin in a hand, pose reminiscent of a scholar observing an interesting lecture and not a hospitalized teenager watching reruns of Detective Loveline.

“Heh, that’s Yusuke,” says Maybe Sakamoto, “He never gets bored in the Day Room like everyone else does, so you shouldn’t bother messin’ with him.”

Ren wasn’t planning on messing with anyone really. He would really rather spend his time wallowing in the back row where there are fewer people, lights, and everything in general.

If Sakamoto notices Ren’s reluctance for any sort of interaction, he definitely doesn’t act on it. “I’m Sakamoto Ryuji. You can just call me Ryuji if ya want. What’s your name? I can kinda see the ‘-miya’ from here but that’s--”

“--Amamiya,” Ren grumbles, not wanting to be an asshole, but really wanting to fade from existence and/or remove his brain from his skull.

Maybe Sakamoto’s just better at reading tones than faces because he instantly tones down his exuberance.

“Hey, man, sorry if I was too much...Don’t let this place get you too down, though. I mean like, it’s just the hospital, y’know? ‘S not that bad after the first week.”

Ren wants to refute the claim that ‘the hospital is not a place to feel down’ or the claim that there are ‘more than one weeks’ of hospitalization, but he strongly doubts any way he might express that will come off as unnecessarily pissy. He manages a neutral grunt in response to Sakamoto’s big caring eyes, and then shifts his legs to stuff them somewhere he can’t feel all the cold dry air on them.

Of course, Sakamoto’s big caring eyes snap to his ankle monitor the moment he moves his leg. Sakamoto makes wide-eyed eye contact with Ren and then impressively whispers at a normal whispering volume, “Dude, holy shit, is that a-a..”

Ren can only nod. He barely has any energy at this point. That nurse he woke up to was probably right about him being under house arrest. It seems pretty stupid to forget, but now it’s probably the only thing he’s going to hear about for the next few hours.

“Is _that_ what you’re here for?” Sakamoto asks, probably intending to ask for more details, but the short dark haired kid sitting on Sakamoto’s left taps him on the shoulder.

“Dude, Sakamoto, leave it!” the boy urges with unmasked anxiety written all over his face, which, great, Ren’s already scared at least two people and he just got here. This guy is probably the one who flinched earlier when Ren had glared at the whole group.

Sakamoto still looks like he wants to say something but Maruki ends his chance by gently calling out, “Boys, no touching please!” A few of the girls in the front rows giggle, and then Ren is left with his muddled thoughts and the faded dialogue from Detective Loveline running the foreground.

Every time he strains his memory trying to remember house arrest or any proof that he was transported to Tokyo, he’s interrupted by the soft chatter around him, the perky Loveline catchphrases Sakamoto repeats almost unconsciously, and the squeaking of the faux leather chairs as patients shift in their seats. No one’s moving around, but he feels like he’s in the middle of the streets in Kyoto, years younger, unable to understand his friends and his teachers because there were so many people loudly living their lives around him.

Eventually he gives up on thinking and closes his eyes, letting sleep take over.

  
  


However much later, Ren wakes abruptly, feeling as though he had climbed a mountain in his sleep. Sakamoto is standing over him, hands up like he hopes Ren won’t hit him, which is an absolutely valid fear.

“Uh, hey man, we gotta go to group now,” he points back to the vague line the patients are in near the exit of the room. They’re chattering a bit, but for the most part they seem to be waiting patiently.

Ren nods, shaking off the lingering sensation of his power nap, and stretches his arms up like a cat. When he stands to join Sakamoto at the end of the amoeba line, his knees make cracking noises loud enough to cause one of the girls to say a very loud, involuntary ew. Her reaction is probably the first bit of humor Ren’s experienced in weeks.

“Alright,” Kawakami addresses the group. She sneaks a tired look at her watch. “Ohya-neesan should be here any second and I’m sure she would appreciate it if you all got in a nice and orderly line. Without talking, or shoving, or meandering…”

Maruki joins her, clipboard in hand and pleasant smile in face. “If you behave, there might even be extra snacks involved!”

...How old does he think they are? The patient in front of Ren with wispy brown hair scoffs in unfiltered disgust. The blonde girl at the very front of the line does a little excited bounce.

“Or you can follow directions as most high schoolers should without needing a reward…,” Kawakami shakes her head.

“But if rewards are what motivate you to do action, that’s fine too! In moderation, of course,” Maruki adds, clearly trying to stuff as much advice as possible in the two minutes they have to wait for whoever this Ohya lady is.

Kawakami makes a face like she wants to hit somebody but she has to be the responsible one, and checks her phone to avoid drawing attention. Again, Ren would find this dynamic extremely entertaining if he didn’t desire to slam his face into the ground (without police assistance, thank you.)

Waiting is boring but peaceably quiet. Most everyone around him fidgets in place, something that is rather new to him considering that he has been scolding his entire life for never sitting still like his classmates. Behind him, Sakamoto is tapping his foot at lightning speed, above him the fluorescent lights hum at their stratosphere pitches, and way beyond, from the double doors that lead out of Unit 5, footsteps and loud humming can be heard.

“Ohya-san, please…,” Kawakami says just as a woman in casual clothing bursts through the doors.

“I know, I know! ‘The schedule’s there for a reason’ and whatnot! I ran into Lala-chan at the elevators and you know I can’t live a day without saying hi to her!”

Ohya’s voice is brash and energetic. Ren understands why Kawakami had called her ‘nee-san’. She reminds him of his older sister when his parents aren’t around.

Giving the group a look-over, Ohya says, “Is this everyone then? No Futaba-chan today?”

“No, ma’am,” says the girl at the front of the line.

“So it’s our usual troublemakers then!” Ohya bends her hip so she can see Ren, “Ooh...hello, newcomer! I’m the expression group lady! We can do all the fancy introduction stuff then. Seeya, Takkun, Sadocchi!”

They leave the unit, trailing through quiet halls without much incident. The tall dark haired boy that sits next to Ren (Yusuke?) pauses once to admire an artwork hanging on the wall, but the girl behind him gently steers him forward before he holds up the line. Ren wonders how long they’ve all been here to be so familiar with each other and their habits.

Ohya unlocks a seemingly random door and they stream into the small room full of large tables, heavy looking chairs, and little else. Everyone spreads to different seats, picking up conversation as they do so. There doesn’t seem to be assigned seating here. Sakamoto steps in front of Ren and gestures for him to follow.

Ohya stands at the front of the room, leaning a clipboard on her hip with her left hand while using the right to pull up her jeans. She reads the page on the clipboard for a second then turns up to the group with a cheeky smile. She kind of reminds Ren of a devil. (Also related to his impression of his older sister.)

“Alrighty, kiddos, I’m Ohya-neesan. I come to this unit once a week to do nighttime expressive therapy group! The plan for tonight is to hmm…,” she trails off, squinting at her paper, then seems to give up. “Ah, whatever! We’ll do some intros, go over the rules, check up on our goals for today, and then we’ll hop into the thing I got for you guys today. You’ll be excited to know that we can use colored pencils today!

“You guys start!” she points to the table to her left and the blonde who had been at the front of the line perks up.

“Hi, I’m Takamaki Ann!” she says, voice pointed in Ren’s direction. It’s clear he’s the only one this needs to be said to. “Umm...Oh! Yes, my hair is natural--” she gestures at her smooth curls pulled back into a ponytail,”--and yes, I’m that one model from the teen magazines that had to quit for bad publicity, so don’t ask. I’m feeling pretty good today! About an 8, really! I’m excited to meet you!”

“Ah, hello, I’m Niijima Makoto,” a girl with short hair waves politely, then turns more toward Ohya. “My day hasn’t been bad. I’ve already completed my goal for today and I’ll get to call my sister later, so I guess I’m a little excited...?”

Ohya hums and then nods to the next patient at the table.

The tall boy with dark hair introduces himself as Kitagawa Yusuke. His day was a ‘6.3’, apparently. The younger girl next to him quietly introduces herself as Yoshizawa. She doesn’t look up from the table and her shoulders shake like she’s trying not to cry. She can’t seem to manage verbalizing a number to describe her day. She stops and starts several times, each attempt ending choked. Ren watches her take off her glasses and put them on the table. Takamaki reaches for a tissue box and passes it to Yoshizawa with a comforting hum.

A pause occurs where the only sounds are Yoshizawa’s sniffles and the tick of the plain clock on the wall. The longer the silence drags on, the more the pit of fear in Ren’s stomach turns to a cold dread. He doesn't think he can handle life here if it goes like this all the time.

“Sumire-chan?” says an older girl with fluffy hair. Yoshizawa flinches at the words and then Ohya intervenes before anyone can jump to make a deal of Yoshizawa’s clearly less than a 5 day.

The fluffy-haired girl introduces herself next, though with a flavoring of hesitance and worry. Haru, as she insists--no family name offered--has short lightly bleached curls that frame her face. Her demeanor and her voice give her the appearance of a docile girl but the bags under her tired eyes and her raspberry colored scrubs break that illusion. (She and Yoshizawa are the only ones with different colored scrubs. Ren wonders if that has any significance. His is still missing a sleeve.) Haru clearly feels guilty for upsetting Yoshizawa, but she does her best to put some positivity in her voice as she speaks. Ren just wishes he wasn’t so bothered by how the pitch of her voice resonates in the small space.

Next from Ren’s table is a piss-offed looking guy with near shoulder length light hair. His eyes look bloodshot red when Ren makes unwilling eye contact. He was scowling before, but once he realizes that Ren was staring, he actually gives a full teeth ‘I’m going to murder you’ grin. Which is. Alright. Sure.

(Again, if this was another time and place, Ren would indulge in giving an equally ‘deranged’ look in return, never one to be outdone. But, once again, he is here at The Velvet Room Psychiatric Hospital and he doubts that social competitions are encouraged.)

Akechi Goro seems bored by Ren’s nonresponse, then offers a likely untruthful 9 out of 10 for his day. When he’s done, he turns away to the small blinded window in the room and resumes scowling.

A guy named Mishima Yuuki is next. He’s probably the most skittish person in the room, hands stuffed in his sweatpant pockets and words mumbled as he rates his day at a six. Ohya notes his improvement from last week and Mishima brightens a little.

Next is Sakamoto, who despite his exuberance, gives his day a low 4. He mentions getting in an argument with his mom over her work last night and that he’s felt like shit about what he said all day today.

“You’re just worried about her; I know you’re a mama’s boy! Just tell her what you really wanted to say and apologize for yelling, alright? We can practice later if you want,” Ohya says, giving Sakamoto the most sincere look Ren’s seen from her so far.

“Yeah, thanks nee-san,” Ryuji stops smiling, but he looks like he means what he says.

“You’re welcome, kiddo!” Ohya grins, then turns to Ren. He forgot he was supposed to be participating. “Alrighty! Your turn! Name and number please!”

Ren leans forward in his chair, feeling the stares of the others in the room. He doesn’t really want to say anything. If he does his introduction, it would be like permanently marking his presence here in this hospital as a patient and not at his home in the hills of Sakashita. It would be acknowledgement that this is real and it’s really happening.

He doesn’t think he can handle this all being real.

“Take your time,” Ohya is saying, scribbling words onto her clipboard. Ren still feels nauseous.

“...Amamiya Ren,” he whispers to the table, watching streaks of red lights bounce around the white plastic under his arms. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been the new person in the room before.

“One through ten?” Ohya encourages. Her voice blends into memories of his sister, certain and caring. Ren wonders if she knows about his arrest, or even his admittance here.

“...two,” he manages, vision swimming beneath him. He’s probably going to need to take his glasses off in a second if he doesn’t want them to get dirty with tears. He doubts anyone has wipes for fake glasses here.

“Two, huh? What’s going on, Ren-chan?” God. If he muffles his hearing enough, he really could believe his sister is right here. Though his sister never asked questions that seemed to have obvious answers. He has no clue what Ohya wants him to say.

“What’s up? You nervous, scared, angry?”

Ren scoffs. “I don’t know--I don’t know why--I-I just don’t want to be here.”

Fuck. God, he fucking hates crying. When he takes off his glasses, his shaky fingers grip the plastic lenses instead of the frames, further smearing them. Fuck.

“Hmm…,” Ohya hums, shifting in her chair. If she passes the tissue box to Ren, he’s going to throw it at her. “Well, you know why you’re here, don’t you?”

....Somehow his whole brain manages to growl. 

He doesn’t even realize he’s glaring at Ohya until she leans back in her seat. “Ayyy, don’t look at me like that, I’m just asking because I don’t know.” 

Ren imagines her holding her hands up like she doesn’t want to get hit, and the image does nothing to slow the swarm of wasps in his head. For the record, when Yoshizawa passes him the tissue box, he doesn’t throw it at anybody. He switches from fiddling with his dirty glasses to shredding his newly acquired tissues into little scraps.

“Look, bud, if you don’t wanna tell us right now that’s fine! You have time! But also, the longer you keep it to yourself, the longer we gotta keep you here.” Ohya shifts in her chair and shoots a glance at the clock. “You know why you’re here, and if you need time to think-it-out, that’s cool! Minimal pressure!”

Ren shakes his head, not expected to be noticed, but Ohya must be very observant because she adds in perhaps the softest tone he’s heard from her all night, “Orrr, if you really don’t know we can figure out together, yeah?”

She pauses long enough that Ren dares a glance up at her before he realizes she’s expecting an answer. Ren nods once cautiously, and Ohya smiles all mischievously. Her eyes are warm enough to make Ren embarrassed.

“Attaboy,” she says. She stands up, raising her voice to address the room. “Alright then, kids, let’s get to business! Lemme see, which drawer did Theo put those little notebooks…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK the day room. all my homies hate being stuck in the day room >:(  
> hey if any of u can find that word i left out or any other mistakes can u tell me? i would get my screen-reader to read it to me but sometimes i hate how it pronounces jpn names so....just not doin it today


End file.
